


The Mess We've Made

by melofttroll



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Case Fic, Divorced Sterek, Fluff, Full Shift Werewolves, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, PI Stiles, Sterek endgame, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:51:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melofttroll/pseuds/melofttroll
Summary: Stiles is doing just fine.  Really.  He'stotally overhis divorce, and he's comfortable and settled far away from Pack Business, and his ex-husband Derek Hale.  But when a viral article about a dead, so-called werewolf ends up in his hands, Stiles is forced to investigate.  Of course it's nothing, right?  I mean, these things are always nothing.  That is, until he finds the wolfsbane surrounding the dead wolf's body, and then sees his ex-husband waiting by his apartment door.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted a post-divorce, get back together fic with Sterek, so I decided to write one. I'm posting as I go, so I'm not sure about my update schedule, and I'm not sure how many chapters this will be, but I'm guessing around 5 since I don't like to write fics that go on too long. I'll update tags, but if I've missed anything, feel free to let me know. Expect a lot of angst, some mild violence, and a lot of hurt/comfort with some mutual pining, and juuuust a dash of slow burn.
> 
> This was initially inspired by that "werewolf" viral article that I've seen all over my social media recently. It's obviously not a werewolf IRL. Probably.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything Teen Wolf.

It starts with viral news. 

And normally Stiles ignores all of that crap, because that’s what it is. Crap. The amount of weird, alien-slash-mermaid-slash-vampire-slash-possessed college student rando articles that pops up on his newsfeed, he’s long-since learned not to pay attention. He especially doesn’t want to pay attention since fleeing Beacon Hills and spending ninety percent of his day pretending like he doesn’t know weird, supernatural shit exists.

Hell, he can even sit through horror movies or episodes of Supernatural without critiquing the storyline these days, and it only causes a tiny headache when he sees Big Bad Wolves jumping through windows and devouring people.

When people on his facebook—which let’s be real, they’re all people he knew from college that he never talks to, but inexplicably knows what their kids ate for breakfast that day—start sharing the Werewolf Article, he ignores it. He knows the world well enough now to know that anything that starts off with, **Werewolf Found, Scientists Baffled** is going to have some very obvious and clear explanation. Like that one sick coyote that the world thought was the Chupacabra for ten minutes. In truth, about ninety seven percent of all werewolves don’t have anything beyond a beta-shift, so whatever the dog-like creature is, it’s probably nothing more than an unfortunate Huskie that got into its owners hair dye or something.

Except then Stiles sees a picture of it, and…and it’s not even the wolf that catches his eye, but the little blueish-purple flowers that are growing all around the shots that the Park Rangers had taken. Stiles knows those intimately—more than he ever wants to. It rips him back to sixteen years old and looking at a wolf cut in half, and pulling a long spiral of Wolfsbane from the ground and staring in horror as the body suddenly became a woman.

His stomach churns at the thought, because at some point, this wolf is going to be taken away from the park ranger, and where a canine was one laying, they’d find a dead person.

And that’s the last thing Stiles needs. Especially when he realizes this whole thing is going on in Arapahoe County, and the ranger’s station is less than a twenty minute drive from his house. So. Fuck.

He gets in his car, and then he calls Scott because that’s just what he does these days. He still loves the man like a brother, but with Scott comes the supernatural shit, and the pack. It comes with the memories of his dad, though he can mostly get through those now without his chest feeling like it’s imploding since really, in the end, it was just natural causes.

But really it’s Derek. It’s Derek who up and left, then came back, then stuck around as Stiles tried the whole FBI thing, and the whole, trying to be a human in supernatural pack business, and started paying attention to Stiles. Then started liking him, and started getting better at the whole life thing, and then started being someone Stiles could see himself growing old with.

Then came I love yous. And rings. And vows.

Then came silence, and distance, and resentment. 

Then came Stiles getting kidnapped and tortured, and Derek losing his actual shit.

Then came deeper silence, and fear, and Stiles knew he couldn’t take it, and Derek didn’t know how to calm down. 

And then. And then came The Ultimatum.

Take the bite or it’s over. And deep down, in an existential way, Stiles understood exactly what Derek was getting at. Because it’s not like he could ever forget what it felt like to be carved up and left for dead. Those long months of recovery were seared into his mind as much as the scars were seared into his skin. And it’s not like Derek didn’t have scars of his own, even if his skin was flawless to the naked, human eye. But Derek wasn’t exactly _wrong_ in saying that at some point, if they kept on the way they were keeping on, Stiles was going to die.

Stiles picked option B. Because if there was one, surefire way to ensure Stiles wouldn’t do something, it was to tell him he had no choice. Derek laid the choice on the table, but in the end it was no choice at all, and Stiles knew that Derek knew what was going to happen in the end.

Stiles signed the divorce papers, and left his ring behind, and packed up his new car, and he left.

His fingers tap on the phone screen as he breathes through the urge to panic. Eventually he forces himself to man-up and make the call, and it rings for so long, he’s not sure Scott’s going to pick up. He does, sounding exhausted, but still happy to hear from his wayward best friend.

“Hey man.”

Stiles can’t help the little grin. “Hey. I’m sorry to wake you, but uh. There’s a problem here.”

He can almost hear the way Scott sits up, the way he comes to immediate attention. “What is it?”

“So that stupid article going viral about the werewolf…”

“Oh. Dude, you know that’s bullshit. Derek,” Scott fumbles a little on the name because he knows, but he still carries on after a second, “says that there’s only like three packs in North America that have the full-shift gene. And none of them are in your area. One of them is up in Maine, and the other one is like somewhere near Toronto.”

Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Uh. Except this wolf or whatever that they found, it was found with wolfsbane. So…yeah.”

Scott groans loudly. “You’re going to check it out?”

“I’m on my way right now. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to convince them not to call my boss on this one, so say a fucking prayer for me, Scott. My rent literally cannot take a suspension without pay.”

“I’m going to make some calls. Just…text me photos when you get there, okay? You don’t have to handle this.” Scott sounds tired but serious and Stiles feels bad that he’s dragging him into something so far from his territory.

“I will. You know, it’s probably nothing at all, but I just…if it’s something…” He doesn’t say that regardless of how far away he goes, he’s never totally out of it because well, he doesn’t need to. He knows. Scott knows. Hell, even Derek knows. Lydia’s in Costa Rica with Cora and she still calls every tie she screams or has random moments of drawing shit that she can’t normally draw. It just is what it is.

“Drive safe,” Scott says.

Stiles nods, mostly to himself really, and lets the call go dead.

He reaches the ranger’s station in forty minutes thanks to the worst traffic in the world, and he parks a good half mile from the entrance. He digs around his glove compartment for his badge—it probably says something about his character that he used his experience at the FBI to make the world’s most convincing badges. His boss will have his back if they call for confirmation, but he knows if he takes another unvetted, unsolicited case on the side, he’s going to lose some serious cred. And some pay which yeah…Denver is great, and he’s doing okay, but it’s not exactly cheap living.

He wishes he’d thought to put on something more than his laundry-day jeans and an old hoodie, but he figures that the really suspicious guys are the ones who show up dressed to the nines. He was suit and tie in the office when he was an intern, and after that it was his ratty graphics tees and his cargo pants. He wonders if it helps that he still looks like a wayward teenager instead of someone with a marriage, divorce, and the whole running away from all your problems under his belt.

He climbs out of the car, puts his phone on silent, then says about a thousand prayers to every pantheon of gods he can think of as he makes the short hike to the station. It’s more like an office than a cabin, and he thinks briefly that his dad would have liked a job like this in his old age. He would have loved nothing more than to be sitting in the woods and the most stressful thing on his plate would have been campers ignoring campfire rules.

And the occasional dead maybe-werewolf. But after all the shit in Beacon Hills, he could have handled it. Maybe then he would have…

Stiles rips himself out of that line of thought, and curls his hand into a fist, knocking as he reaches for his badge.

The ranger that answers is a red-headed guy with a face full of freckles and heavy bags under his eyes. He raises a brow at Stiles as he opens the screen. “You lost? I can give you a map if…”

Stiles shoves the badge at him. “Look man, I don’t even really want to be here, but my SO is a fan of Supernatural and he’s literally threatening my Christmas Bonus if I don’t at least take a look.” He knows he doesn’t have to mention why he’s here. “Is it still here, or did Animal Control already dispose of it?”

“It’s still here,” the guy says with a tiny sigh. “We’ve had a lot of werewolf fans coming up here to take pictures, but I didn’t think I’d have someone from the feds.”

“Trust me,” Stiles says, wondering when exactly it was he got so good at lying. He was terrible at it when he was a teen. “This is the last place I want to be. But if I can get a picture and shut him up, he’ll get off my ass and I might actually get to enjoy a weekend.”

The ranger snorts, then leads Stiles around the back of the house, down a path, to a small awning that looks like it was erected at night during a wind storm. There’s a tarp covering the body, and Stiles can see the flowers nearby. They’re planted, which puts him on edge because he knows it’s not natural. It was a calculated move.

His phone starts to buzz in his pocket, and he ignores it in favor of walking up to the tarp and peering under it. He only just manages to contain his flinch because one, it smells fucking terrible, and two, it’s a werewolf. It’s definitely a werewolf.

Fuck.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes the camera open, getting a couple of shots before letting it drop down. “How long are they going to let this thing rot out here?”

“We got a call saying we couldn’t move the body for another few days,” the ranger says, shrugging and looking uncomfortable.

Stiles nods, and thanks god for that because he’ll need to come here and drag the body out of the circle of wolfsbane to get any idea who it is. And that needs to be done soon because the thing is rotting fast in the wet, humid Colorado spring.

“Well, hopefully this will satisfy him, and I’ll remind him we’re not exactly in the business of natural animal deaths.” He offers a smile, easy as anything really comes to him these days, and then they walk back to the house.

He offers the ranger his card, which leads to his cell and to Marco’s office phone with the little tag that says FBI, and he knows he’s not busted. Probably. Yet.

He doesn’t check his phone until he gets in the car, and before he even looks at his call log, he stares at the pictures again. It’s shitty lighting, and the wolf doesn’t look familiar, so that’s something. But he has a sinking feeling like maybe this is some lost Hale pack member or some shit which makes him feel more than terrible because as much as he’s still salty about Derek’s ultimatum, and the willingness to just let their marriage end, the man has lost enough. Stiles doesn’t want to be the guy who has to tell him that yet another member of his lost pack is dead.

He turns to the call log and sees that it’s Marco calling. “Fuck,” he whispers to himself, then calls back. The feeling of dread is back in full force, and he holds his breath, waiting for Marco’s nasal voice to start bitching him out.

Instead, the guy says, “You have a new case. The guy won’t tell me why, which is fine because he’s paying us a metric ton of cash. Anyway, he wants you to sneak out to the ranger’s station and steal that wolf body.”

Stiles feels his stomach twist. “This guy. He got a name?”

He knows it’s a weird question because he never asks, and Marco knows it’s a weird question by the silence Stiles gets after asking it. Then he says, “He just says his name is Bruce.”

No one Stiles recognizes, and he’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse. The only good thing is that he was coming back out anyway to get the body to transform so…hey. No real less work for him. “Yeah okay. I’m on it.”

The call ends, and Stiles hopes the worst is over.

He’s wrong though.

Because when he steps into his building, Derek fucking Hale is sitting next to his front door.

_ _ _ 

“No.”

Derek pushes to his feet, looking infuriatingly gorgeous, as always. His beard is thicker and if possible, his shoulders are even more broad. His eyes are still stupidly bright, like the Atlantic on a summer day. He’s wearing a black t-shirt under his dumb leather jacket, and he’s got his hands in the pockets of his jeans looking like a chastised kid.

“Scott sent me.”

“Oh I fucking bet he did,” Stiles says. He shoves past Derek and pretends he doesn’t notice the way his ex _sniffs_ him. What he wants to do is whirl around and punch him, and shout at him that Derek has no right to _any_ of him anymore, and that he has no right to be here after telling Stiles that he’s not good enough as a human. Then he wants to shove him against the wall and make out with him until he can’t feel his face.

Instead he unlocks his door and steps inside and leaves the damn door open because he knows Derek will follow him anyway. He doesn’t protect his place with mountain ash because in spite of being away from wolves for so long, it’s still instinct that prevents him from making it so a wolf would be trapped in a small space, unable to get out if there was danger.

He hates himself a little for that, too.

Walking to the kitchen, he gets two beers—he still drinks the shit Derek got him hooked on, and he pretends he doesn’t see the surprise on Derek’s face when he hands it over.

The silence stretches on, awkward and ugly. Then Derek sits on the couch and Stiles takes the chair and throws one foot up on the table. “It’s a werewolf.”

“I know,” Derek says.

Stiles snorts unattractively. “Of course you do. Happen to know which one? Because some anonymous guy paid my boss a stupid amount of money for me to go steal the body.”

“What guy?” Derek demands, suddenly tense, leaning forward.

Stiles shrugs. “Man, I don’t ask questions.”

Derek’s eyebrows fly up. “Since when?”

“Since my husband dumped me, and I was force to flee the city and earn a living that wouldn’t leave me starving in the streets,” he says meanly. He gets a small thrill when Derek openly flinches, and he hates that he knows he’s the one who got Derek to come out of his shell and show open emotion. Fuck him so much. “Anyway, do you know who it is?”

After a beat, Derek sits back and shakes his head. “No, but it’s been happening all over the continent. The Moreau pack lost four members last month, all of them found in the woods surrounded by transplanted wolfsbane. There were two in Mexico, and one in Florida.”

“All full-shift wolves,” Stiles says.

Derek nods. “Looks like a serial killer. I got ahold of Chris, to see if there’s anything on the hunter channels, but he said it’s not one of them. Or if it is, they’re either acting in secret, or went rogue. My guess is it’s vengeance, and it’s human.”

Stiles shrugs. He cares, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to gather up this body and shove it at this Bruce guy, and then never think of this again. He wants to make Derek leave, and to open his windows because this is the first place he’s ever lived that didn’t have Derek’s stupid scent on _everything_ and now that’s _ruined_.

Instead he asks, “Does the name Bruce mean anything to you?”

Derek shrugs. “I’ve known a few in my life. Had a cousin named Bruce, but without a last name…”

“Yeah. We tend not to ask. It’s a lot easier that way.”

Derek bites his bottom lip, then blows out a puff of air. “You didn’t have to leave, Stiles. You didn’t…”

“Stop,” he says, his tone icy because after all these years, it still fucking hurts like it was yesterday, like only hours ago he was watching Beacon Hills disappear in his rearview mirror. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to have told me that I’m not worth it as a human, and that me being with you is too dangerous for you to deal with, and then tell me that I didn’t have to leave. I was supposed to what? Wallow until the pain of seeing you was so much that I gave in and let Scott bite me? Is that it?”

Derek’s eyes fall shut, and his head bows forward, and he murmurs, “I was an idiot.”

“Well that’s not fucking news, Derek,” Stiles sneers. “That’s never been news. I’ve known you were an idiot from the moment you told me the preserve was private property and then proceeded to fuck my life up beyond recognition.”

He half expects some apology or…something. He’s not really sure where Derek is as far as moving on goes. For all Stiles knows, Derek could be married with kids. He could be just about anything, but Stiles was never brave enough to ask. He can’t pretend he knows what to expect from Derek now.

“I can’t leave until I figure this out. You don’t need to be part of it, though,” is what Derek says. Eventually. After a good two minutes of total silence.

“Well, yeah actually, I do need to be part of it because I’m being paid to turn that body over. But uh,” Stiles hesitates, then shrugs, “I was going to go move the body so I could get a look at who it was, send the shots to Scott so he can put the word out. You’re welcome to come along.”

Derek bites the inside of his cheek, making the left side of his face look hollow. Then he says, “But you’re still turning the body over to that guy, right? Even if he could be the one doing this? Even if this guy is looking for a trophy?”

It churns Stiles’ stomach, and frankly he’s _not_ sure if he’s going to turn the body over. His life was fucked, but he didn’t lose all sense of morality, and he’s not going to let some sicko desecrate a dead person who deserves a funeral, who deserves to be brought home to grieving family. But he still manages to look Derek dead in the face and say, “I do what I’m paid to.”

He’s not sure if Derek hears the lie, or if he’s gotten that good at it that Derek can’t tell anymore. Whatever the case, Derek doesn’t react. He just lets his head fall to the side and slumps down. “Wake me up before you leave. I drove all the way here.”

Stiles stands up and goes to his room, and lets the door slam a little. Flopping on his bed, he pulls Carrie’s contact up and texts, **SOS, get me wasted after this case. I’m begging.**

_Come by the bar when you’re done, babe. I’ll get you nice and schwasty._

_ _ _ 

Stiles manages to nap, and then to make himself food and get ready to go before Derek wakes up. He knows he shouldn’t do it, but apparently it’s easy to slip into making enough for one human and one werewolf, and it’s apparently easy for Derek to slip into eating whatever Stiles serves him without question.

It hurts. It hurts more than he wants to think about, because there’s still this raw, anguished part of him that will only ever be soothed by Derek’s arms, and his chest-deep rumble, and his soft lips that knew exactly where to kiss to make Stiles’ eyes roll back in his head. Part of him wonders how much damage an anger-fuck would do, but he’s not that stupid.

He just shrugs on an old hoodie and slips his feet into his shoes without tying them—trying not to think about how he knows Derek hates when he does that—and then they head out to his car.

The silence is literally painful, Stiles’ chest all twisted up and his stomach in knots. Neither of them say much though, and Derek doesn’t complain or comment when Stiles parks over a mile away. It’s pitch black, but the training and instinct to follow Derek’s shadow comes back easily enough, and he knows Derek is following the scent rather than directions.

Stiles has his bag of random tools—rope, small tarp, gloves, shears, a small bottle of lighter fluid, and matches. He’s got a flashlight which he’ll need in order to get a decent photo, and he’s got his more expensive digital camera.

It feels like they’ve been walking for a hundred years when Derek suddenly comes to a stop, his hand flying out, warm palm pressing to the center of Stiles’ chest. Stiles finds himself leaning into it, and he hears the hitch in Derek’s breath, but is grateful the other man says nothing about it.

“Der,” Stiles begins in a rough, barely-there whisper.

“No,” Derek says. Stiles hears him sniff the air. Twice. Then his hand falls away and Stiles feels the absence of it keenly. “There were humans here.”

“Yeah dude, this is the ranger’s station…”

“No,” Derek says. “Not the rangers. I smell something else, something foreign to the area. They’re gone but…” He trails off, sniffs again. “It wasn’t that long ago. They were in a truck. Diesel.”

Stiles hangs his head because he fucking knows what that means. He groans, then pushes ahead of Derek and they come around the ranger’s station and yeah. Just as predicted. The awning is on its side, and the tarp is thrown back. The wolfsbane have all been dug up from the ground, and the wolf is missing.

Derek is suddenly not by his side, and Stiles hears the sound of a screen door slamming. He jumps into action, rushing toward the station, and comes to a skidding halt in the doorway. A ranger—not the same guy as before—is lying on the floor. Crouched over him, Derek’s feeling for a pulse, and he looks up after a second.

“Not dead. Knocked out. They were after the wolf.”

Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes. “No shit. We need to see if there’s any security feed, and if there is, get our asses off of it as quick as possible.”

Derek doesn’t stop him as Stiles marches into the house and begins the search. He finds the security console in a back room—rudimentary and almost pathetic, but he pulls up the video feed from earlier that afternoon and sees himself talking to the redheaded guy. It goes on and on for a while, and he scrolls through until about twenty minutes before they arrived. There’s a truck, and a guy leaning out the driver’s seat. Stiles can’t make much out apart from dark hair and eyes. He leans over, his hands off-screen, and then the screen goes dark.

So they’re good at least. No evidence of them. But also nothing more than a mid two-thousands Ford pick up, and a guy with dark hair which…yeah. Stiles has solved more going on less, but he also wasn’t chasing a serial killer who is taking out endangered, rare werewolves either.

“Anything?” Derek asks from the doorway.

Stiles jumps a little, and gives an annoyed growl as he drags a hand down his face. “No. I mean…” He scrolls back to show the video. “Anything?”

Derek shakes his head. “I haven’t done a whole lot outside of Beacon Hills. But if we can get a copy of this…”

Stiles rewinds it again, then takes a video on his camera which won’t be great, but he also can’t risk taking it since the authorities are going to want to know who knocked out a ranger and stole a dead wolf. And frankly, having law enforcement on his side here isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world.

He shoves the camera back into his bag, then turns to his unwanted companion. “We need to get the hell out of here before someone comes to check on this guy.”

Derek nods, and leads the way out, though instead of heading toward the road, he walks to the fallen awning. It’s obvious he’s trying to pick up as much scent as possible, and Stiles tries not to remember a time back when Derek working like this and honing his wolf skills in human form really did it for him.

He swallows thickly and knows Derek can probably smell it on him.

Fuck.

Neither of them say a word as they walk away.

“You’re going to be staying, aren’t you?” Stiles asks when they’re near the car.

Derek lets out a tiny breath. “Uh. Yeah, probably. At least until I get a lead.”

Stiles drops into the front seat and fights the urge to bash his face on the steering wheel.

“I can get a hotel,” Derek says. “There’s no need for me to be all up in your space.”

“Too late for that,” Stiles says. “And obviously there’s shit going on, that’s probably going to put you in danger since you’re a full-shift wolf and I’m willing to bet you’re on this guy’s list.”

Derek’s cheeks darken a little, obvious even in the shadows of the car. “I can take care of myself.”

“Clearly so can I. What with the having not been killed yet in spite of my frail, fragile human body.” He turns the car on and pretends he doesn’t hear Derek’s soft, under-his-breath apology.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyy so I was on the longest drive of my life, but my laptop battery lasted. It was a miracle! I managed to finish this fic, so I'm going to post it all as long as this crappy hotel wifi cooperates. 
> 
> Warning: this chapter contains non-graphic mentions of permanent injury, death of a child, and torture.

He feels disgusting. Lack of sleep is worse than any hangover, and he sure as shit didn’t get a full REM cycle knowing that Derek fucking Hale was sleeping on his couch. He’s not stupid enough to think he’d ever be rid of Derek completely. He was warned by literally everyone he knew that eating where you shit meant a lifetime of stench if it didn’t work out. But he had foolishly believed Derek wouldn’t ever darken his doorway ever again—at least not this fucking far away from Beacon Hills.

Stiles knows he has to go talk to his boss. Marcos isn’t going to be happy about the potential loss of fat payout with the body gone. And though Stiles has a literal, actual Super Sniffer on his couch, he doesn’t want to involve Derek in his personal business if he doesn’t have to.

He eventually drags himself out of bed and into the shower, which helps a little. He throws on his cleanest pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and ignores the rising pile of laundry that’s only still dirty due to the sheer, epic procrastination of his daily life since his washer and dryer are both functioning, and in their own, separate little room right off the back porch.

Slipping into the living room, he sees Derek there, lying on his back, awake but not looking over. Stiles knows Derek was aware probably the second he woke up, and he’s choosing to remain silent as some sort of peace offering. Stiles kind of wants to punch him for that. He doesn’t want this apologetic, penitent Derek. He wants the asshole who would throw him against the wall and bash his face into a steering wheel so he can keep feeling good about hating him.

They weren’t supposed to mature and get all…reasonable.

He flicks on the coffee maker and just as he’s reaching for a mug, his phone rings. He’d nearly forgotten all about it, so he jumps two feet in the air, then scrambles for it, his heart sinking when he sees Marcos’ name on the screen.

“Yeah so…there’s a problem,” Stiles says.

“Bruce informed me the body was gone,” is Marcos’ way of answering.

Stiles’ face heats, and he thinks back to Derek’s question about whether or not this Bruce is actually the guy doing all this. Maybe he knows exactly who Stiles is, and maybe it’s all some sick joke. “Uh,” is all he says. “Sorry?”

“He wants to meet up with you and talk about options,” Marcos says. “He’s already made a deposit so your only options are yes, and yes.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and lets his head rest against his cabinet. “I hate you so much. You know that, right?”

“There’s not even a small part of me that cares, Meech. He’ll be at that little vegan café on the corner of Quebec and Thirty Sixth at eight tonight.”

“How will I recognize him?” Stiles demands. “Will he be carrying a book with a flower in it?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Marcos demands just as Stiles hear Derek muffle his laughter. It stings. It stings because all it does is make him think about bad nights with too much pizza and Meg Ryan movie marathons. Fuck _him_ so much.

“Never mind,” Stiles mutters.

“Trust me, you’ll know him when you see him,” Marcos says, then hangs up.

Stiles groans and slams the phone on the table, reaching for his mug and pouring his too strong black coffee. “I guess there’s no point in trying to pretend that you didn’t hear any of that.”

Derek grumbles, sighs, then sits up and stretches. He’s wearing a tank-top, and even after all this time and all this anger, Stiles can’t help but want to stare at the way his muscles ripple, and the way his jaw cracks as he moves it from side to side. “I’ll be ready to go by eight, as soon as I…”

“Woah, hold up,” Stiles says, staring at him with wide eyes. “It’s cute that you think you’re invited, but you’re not.”

Derek stands, crossing his arms, looking as stubborn and immovable as he ever has. “Stiles, this guy could be the one killing the wolves. He could be using you.”

“To get to you?” Stiles offers, a little meanly. “First of all, he’s barking up the wrong tree. Second of all, if that’s the case, it makes even less fucking sense for you to go with me.”

Derek lifts a brow. “I mean, apart from him kidnapping you and torturing you to get to me?”

“Aww, that’s so sweet you think I think you still give a shit about my person.” Stiles knows that’s a lie, knows the off-beat thumping of his heart is loud enough for even a human to pick up on it. But well, Derek doesn’t get to pretend like he has any right to run to Stiles’ rescue anymore. “Anyway, I don’t think he’d be paying my boss that kind of money just to kidnap me. If he knows who I am, he probably knows where I live, and he’d just you know…show up. Not break his bank for this.”

Derek looks like he wants to argue, and frankly Stiles knows that no matter what he says, Derek is going to follow him anyway. But he refuses to concede simply because Derek’s gonna do what Derek’s gonna do.

_ _ _ 

Stiles is ready to leave by seven thirty. He’s showered, dressed in plain clothes, and has his pocket knife in his pocket for just in case.

“I have Netflix and Amazon prime hooked up to my xbox, so you can entertain yourself with that. I don’t know how long this will take me,” he tells Derek after walking into the living room. Derek’s sitting on the couch, and doesn’t give more than a grunt of acknowledgement. He goes into his bedroom for one final sweep, and when he comes out, the apartment is empty. 

Dragging a hand down his face, he gathers his keys and wallet, then heads to his car where—surprise surprise—Derek is already sitting in his back seat.

Stiles ignores him, pretends it’s like a bad horror movie about the man with the hook hand or something, and just starts driving. He throws on his GPS because even after all this time, he still gets confused with the way the streets are laid out, and the weird exit lefts on the freeway. He makes it to the little side-street parking with about thirty seconds to spare, but he’s pretty sure this guy isn’t going to bail just because it took him a minute.

Stiles gets out and locks Derek in the car, knowing that’s basically pointless, then gives the roof two sharp taps. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, keep waiting.”

He tells himself he didn’t park this close so Derek will be able to hear his heartbeat without having to move closer.

He peers through the window, but it’s one of those places where all their weird, thriftstore, kitchy crap and random advertisements for local bands, and meetups, and save the planet protests decorate the windows, so all he gets is a vague idea of a few bodies inside, and the whiff of coffee and steamed almond milk.

He glances behind him, just to check and see if Derek’s following because the guy has really never been subtle in his life. But he can still see Derek’s hunched form through the window of his car, so he calls it a win, and walks inside.

He takes two steps, then freezes. The thing is, he does immediately recognize this Bruce guy. Like four seconds and his heart is pounding. The guy is almost a carbon copy of Derek. Well, apart from the fact that his neck is a sea of claw-marked scars, and that his left eye doesn’t move which means it’s probably a prosthetic, and his right arm is curled against his chest in a way that says it probably doesn’t function the way it had before he got all those scars.

Stiles has seen a wolf blinded by hunter’s arrows, and he’s seen a wolf’s skin marred by ink and fire. He’s even seen Peter scarred beyond recognition—for a while—before the healing kicked in. It means that this guy who is _clearly_ a Hale, _clearly_ related to Derek within a generation, is either too injured to heal, or not a wolf at all.

He’s betting on the latter.

Stiles contemplates ordering, but instead bypasses the small line, drags the chair out with an obnoxious squeak, and plops down. He folds his hands on the table and says, “Your name isn’t Bruce, is it?”

The guy shakes his head, and his right eye flickers to the door, then back to Stiles’ face. It’s the same exact shade of blue,green,brown that Derek’s is. Jesus. “My name is Alexander.”

It doesn’t sound familiar. He knows that Derek had three brothers—David, Andrew, and Dominic. He knows that he had a few cousins that had burned up in the fire, too. And he knew that several of them were very young, and were very human. He’s fairly sure no scarring on this guy came from that fire. 

What he really wants to know is why this guy tracked him down instead of Derek. “Why me?” he demands.

“You mean, why not your husband?” Alexander asks. His voice isn’t anything like Derek’s, but Stiles thinks that could be throat damage the way he sounds like a long-time smoker.

“He’s my ex husband,” Stiles is quick to point out, “and yeah. Why not him. I know you’re related.”

“Fucking Hale genes, right?” he asks with a husky laugh that doesn’t really sound amused. “I don’t actually really know him. We met like half a dozen times growing up.”

Stiles licks his lips, and glances at the door again because he’s pretty sure Derek can definitely hear all of this and he’s now just kind of waiting for him to burst in and demand to be allowed to help what’s left of his broken, fractured, mostly-dead family. “Okay. So my next question should be pretty obvious.”

“Why do I want the body?” he offers.

Stiles sits back. “You’re not as dumb as you look, Alexander.”

The guys’ eyebrows rise a little higher, but he shrugs. “I want to know if it’s my daughter.”

Stiles goes silent after that, unable to talk even if he’d wanted to, because well… _fuck_. 

Alexander goes on. “Whoever is doing this, he’s after born wolves with a full shift, and I’m pretty sure you figured that one out already. The wolf he killed back in October was my youngest daughter. That’s when I got all this,” he waved his hand at his body, and it was then Stiles noticed how pink and fresh all the scars were. “She was fourteen,” he says, and his voice is thick with emotion, but his one good eye is still dry. “We were on a fall break camping trip. We took one every year, and this _thing_ , whatever’s doing this, it knew. It knew exactly where we’d be, so it was either tracking us, or it had already gotten to know us. She ran, so it tied me up, clawed me up until I screamed. She came back for me because she was fourteen and terrified. I was unconscious by the time he killed her. I woke up the first time, and she was in her wolf form, surrounded by wolfsbane, dead. I was knocked out again, and when I came to, she was gone.”

Stiles drags a hand down his face. “Fuck.”

Alexander lets out a harsh sigh. “Yeah. I don’t know why it fucked up this time. It left me for dead, I think, but I survived. But there’s never been any witnesses until those rangers found that wolf body. I don’t know why it killed so close to the ranger station, and I don’t know what scared it off.”

“You know that humans are involved, right? That this thing is probably human?” Stiles presses.

Alexander gives him a careful look. “I don’t care what species it is. Human or not, it’s a fucking monster. It wore a mask, it wore gloves with metal spikes made to look like wolf claws. It murdered a child. My oldest went missing around the time that they found this wolf. She was enrolled at New Mexico State University, and if this is her well... I can’t imagine how she got to Colorado on her own like that, or why. But I can’t find her anywhere and she’s either in hiding, or this monster took her too.”

Stiles feels a hot pit of rage and grief in his stomach, and forces him to remember everyone they lost at the hands of monsters before he fled. “I have pictures on my phone. I went back for the body, but it was missing before I could get to it. Still, if you’d recognize her wolf…”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “I’ve already seen the pictures. It looks like her, but they all kind of look alike. There’s at least twenty in the US that I know of, and I wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from another. Not without…”

Not without seeing the body, Stiles thinks, but doesn’t say. “What about scent. Clearly you know Derek’s here, and he was with me that night. If you have something that belonged to your daughter, maybe he could tell if it was her or…”

“No,” Alexander spits, and Stiles blinks.

“Uh. Dude, like, you don’t have to be friends with the guy. I’m just saying…”

“I’d rather leave it a mystery than deal with bigots,” he says, and Stiles is completely taken aback, because…what?

“Look man, you said you only met Derek a couple of times. You can’t just assume…”

“Talia was my mother’s twin sister,” he says. “My mother was human, though, and Talia became alpha, so she married my mother off to the first alpha she could find because my mother refused to take the bite. The Hales didn’t want to dirty their pack with humans.”

Stiles blinks. “Dude. There were humans in his pack when their house burned.”

Alexander snorts. “Children. Right? Too young to take the bite, too young to be sure they would stay human.”

Stiles opens his mouth to argue, but in truth, Alexander is right. Every single adult in that house was a wolf except the children. His face flushes, and he sees when Alexander becomes aware of his realization.

“Let me guess. He loved you, he wanted to protect you, and he wanted you to be yourself, but he needed you to take the bite because he couldn’t handle anything else.”

Stiles feels like Derek’s leaving him all over again, only it’s worse this time because there’s actually history to it. Fuck. “I…” He breathes out. “Look man, Derek and I are over, and I don’t really want to be working with him any more than you do. But there’s a goddamn serial killer out there, and your daughter is missing, and if she’s not dead, we need to stop this guy before he can make that so.”

Alexander nods. “That’s why I came to you.”

Stiles frowns. “Uh? Because I have a history of taking down serial killers?” Which in retrospect is _kind of_ true.

“Because you’ll be willing to do whatever it takes, and at the first sign of danger, he ran right to you.”

It takes him a minute, and he’s shaking his head right as it starts to make sense. “Dude. No. I’m not using him as _bait_.”

“This thing is after full shift wolves, and you have one right in your lap,” Alexander presses. “Ask Derek. He’s listening right now, I’ll bet, and when you walk out to that car, he’s going to say yes. He always says yes. He’s a prejudiced asshole and he’ll never love you for who you are, but he still loves you. And if this thing has sensed him already, the _best_ you can hope for is to come out of it as well as I did when it’s through with you.”

Stiles can’t help but shiver, and he drags a hand down his face again. “I…need to go.”

Alexander reaches into his pocket with his uninjured hand and slides a card across the table to Stiles. “Text me when you decide. I can easily cut out your middle man if money’s the issue here.”

“Money is definitely not the issue here,” Stiles says, knowing that Marcos would literally kill him before this serial killer got the chance. “I’m not broke.”

“Then we’ll keep going as is. But you really don’t have any other options, Stiles. The only trail this thing has left behind is the ghost of dead wolves, and now a fading scent. If you have any better ideas, I’m willing to listen.”

Stiles doesn’t answer him, just gets up and storms out of the café.

When he reaches his car, Derek is gone, and Stiles knows he’s already screwed.


	3. Chapter 3

In a surprising turn of events, Derek’s at his apartment when Stiles gets back. He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat, though he’s not breathing heavy so it means he ran and somehow beat Stiles with enough time to calm down. It’s irritating, but what’s more irritating is the overwhelming sense of relief now that Stiles knows where he is.

“You’re not doing it,” Stiles says.

Derek snorts, giving Stiles an incredulous look. “As you’ve been so keen to point out lately, we’re not married anymore. You don’t have the right to tell me what I am and am not doing.”

Stiles clenched his jaw. “Derek. If the situation was reversed—if this thing was after humans with like…moles or something, and I tried to offer myself up as fucking bait…” He stops, then holds up a finger in Derek’s face. “And if you fucking say a _word_ about how it’s different because I’m human…”

“I wasn’t going to,” and there’s something completely different, almost heartbroken, in Derek’s tone. It’s the first thing since Derek got there that really and truly gave Stiles pause. Derek stares at him, his eyes a little wide, his arms out in a kind of helpless gesture. He eventually deflates and walks backward until he can sink down on the couch, and his face falls into his hands. “I had no idea.”

Stiles frowns as he walks into the room and sits on the chair. “What? That your angry cousin was human?”

Derek huffs a humorless, tight laugh. “No. I knew that. I knew how my mom felt about my aunt Yael. She…” Derek bites his lip as he sits back, dragging both hands down his face with a frustrated growl. “I never thought to question her. She was my mother, and my alpha. It just…made sense to accept what she said. My mom made it all about her vulnerability, about her unwillingness to want to be close to her. I was angry on my mom’s behalf, that my aunt would chose her own pride over what my mom was trying to do.”

Stiles swallows thickly, and he doesn’t say a word because who is he to interrupt this sudden revelation. His anger is there, though. Because fuck Derek. Fuck him for not realizing this years ago, when there was a marriage to be salvaged.

“The stupidest part,” Derek says, and looks at Stiles, his eyes red-rimmed like he’s been crying. “I don’t think humans are weaker. I don’t think they’re less. I just…my mom told me my entire life that it wouldn’t work with a human. I…there was a reason I was so eager to just let it happen with Paige and I…” He shivers and looks away, like he can’t bear the thought of Stiles’ face right then. “It could have killed you too. And I think…god. My mom was so comforting when Paige died, and I think deep down she thought that Paige was better off dead than a human attached to her son.”

“Derek,” Stiles says very softly, “you didn’t make me feel like I was less. You just made me feel like I didn’t have a choice.”

“Isn’t that the same fucking thing?” Derek asks, his voice hard now. He rises and starts to pace a little, hands going to his hair every so often to drag through it until the product is nothing and it’s sort of a fluffy mess the way Stiles remembers it from lazy mornings. “You loved me through all my bullshit, Stiles. You loved me through my evolution to who I am today, and never asked me to change for you. You would have kept loving me if I’d stayed the angry, emotionally constipated dipshit who couldn’t say I love you. And how did I repay that?”

Stiles sits back and tries to process this. “I don’t mean to sound like an ass, Der, but I think we kind of have bigger fish to fry than an emotional epiphany. It’s good that you’re realizing this, that you’re figuring it out. And I don’t want you to stop. I have to assume you’re at least _dating_ , so this can only be good for them, right? I mean, unless it’s a wolf, but Scott hasn’t said so…”

“I’m not dating a wolf, Stiles,” Derek replies quietly.

But he doesn’t deny that he’s dating, which feels like a stab in the heart even though it _shouldn’t_ He pushes all that shit down and goes back to the matter at hand. “All that aside, you can’t be used as bait. That thing will kill you.”

“We’ve survived a lot worse,” Derek points out.

“Actually, we don’t know that. I mean we’ve survived some bad shit, but we don’t know what this thing is capable of. Human or not, it’s managed to get the best of several full-shift wolves, and it’s been getting away with it for a while. I don’t know if you saw what your cousin looked like…”

“I saw,” Derek says softly.

“Well, it scared me,” Stiles admits. “That thing killed his daughter, possibly both of them. They’re your family, however they might feel about you, and I’m not letting you just throw yourself out there.”

“You hate me. Why do you care?” Derek asks softly as he finally sits back down.

Stiles sighs. “I don’t. God, I want to hate you. You have no fucking idea how much easier it would be. Or at least apathy, you know? But god help me, I still care. And I might want to punch you in the face like…a lot, but I don’t want you dead. Okay? So that plan is off the table.”

Derek bites his lip, then says, “If Alexander will let me get his daughter’s scent, I can see if I can track it. At the very least, we can send those images to Danny and see if he can pull anything. He can probably hack into the security feed too, maybe a gas station or something. I want to find this thing, Stiles. And not just for my safety.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah. No. I’m with you, dude.”

“Don’t,” Derek starts quietly, then shakes his head. “Never mind. I uh…I’m going to shower.”

Stiles nods. “I have to go out again. Meeting with my boss, then I’m going out for drinks with a friend. You gonna be cool here on your own?”

“I think I can handle a few hours inside my own head,” he says, and offers a grin which still devastates him.

Stiles curls his fingers into his palm and squeezes, then stands up. “Okay well uh. Text me, I guess. If anything comes up. Don’t answer the door, if some maniac with claw gloves shows up, just run.”

“Yes mom, got it mom,” Derek snarks with a tiny grin.

It’s too playful. It’s too familiar. Stiles forces himself not to react, and hurries away, sending an SOS to Carrie before he heads to Marcos’ office to discuss the case and demand a big fucking chunk of that payout.

_ _ _ 

Marcos isn’t even in the office, he left a note for Stiles that just says, **Get the job done** , and half his payment which is the size of a normal payment, so yeah, drinks are on him tonight.

Carrie’s already at the bar, which is pretty dead, though normal for Downtown Denver on a Wednesday night. The bar they like to frequent is directly across the street from one of the more posh strip clubs, and it tends to see the pre-drinkers since the cost over there is twice as much.

Luckily for Stiles, who really isn’t in the mood to deal with drunk frat bros who think they can romance the people dancing for them, they don’t really see much of that. Cassie has already snagged a booth in the far corner and had ordered Stiles a gin on the rocks with a little plate of extra limes.

Stiles slides into the booth, leans his head back with a groan, and ignores Cassie’s look of disgust as he squeezes three lime wedges into the drink. He stirs it with the tiny black straw, then gulps down half with a grimace.

“This is well,” he complains.

“Like I’m buying your ass top shelf,” she snarks back, kicking him under the table. “Who pissed in your cheerios, bro?”

Stiles scrubs a hand down his face and lolls his head to the side to look at her. They’ve fucked a couple of times, but she’s aro and Stiles really hasn’t been into women much since the thing with Lydia went to hell in a handbasket. He likes her though, and the sex was pretty great, and she kind of reminds him of Malia which is at times the worst thing, and at times the best.

“So my ex is here.”

Cassie perks up, having heard way too many of Stiles’ drunken ramblings about his fucking ridiculously hot ex who shouldn’t be allowed to exist. “What? Where?”

“Not here,” Stiles says, but then has a sinking feeling that maybe he is actually here. A cursory glance says no, but the bar is heavily shadowed so he can’t be sure. Not that he cares. Derek deserves to overhear _all_ the shit-talking. “He showed up at my house and he’s sleeping on my couch for…uh. A while. And he’s…fucking sorry,” Stiles says, and chases that bitter statement with another long drink. He’s been there five minutes, and he’s almost out, and he wants to be blind drunk before he gets back home.

Luckily, as if by magic, a server appears and Stiles offers over his card for a tab and orders himself another, “But with Bombay Sapphire,” he says.

The server looks happy as hell for the upgrade, and quickly hurries off.

“So, he’s sorry,” Cassie says. “That’s a good thing, right? Because like three weeks ago you were crying into that shitty bottle of red wine and saying that if he apologized you’d probably drop trou right there and then whisk him off to Vegas for a remarriage by Elvis.”

Fuck, he really really hopes Derek isn’t there. “Uh. Yeah well…” The thing is, he can’t exactly tell her off because frankly it wasn’t a lie three weeks ago, and it’s damn-well not a lie after seeing Derek again. “It’s not that easy, you know? I can’t just forgive and forget that be basically dumped me for no fucking reason.” He goes quiet when the server arrives with the drink and fresh limes, and yeah, he’s going to tip well because he’s sad and drunk. He takes another long sip. “I need to get laid.”

“Not a lot to choose from here, babe,” she says. “You can eat me out if you want. That usually gets you worked up enough to come.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Pragmatic of you,” he says dryly, “but I think I need a bathroom blowjob by some beardy dude. It’ll take the edge off the _shit_ I have going on in my life right now.”

“Pobrecito,” she says, patting his hand.

He whines and leans into her. “See anything like that around here?”

She sits up slightly in her seat. “I see a couple of prospects.”

“Hmm.” His eyes are already starting to go fuzzy, and he realizes it’s because he hasn’t had shit to eat, so the gin is hitting him. Hard. “Uh. I’m going to hit the head. Can you grab me something fried and disgusting, and also see if you can scope anything out for me. I really don’t want to go home tonight.”

Cassie sighs, but nods and waves him off. Probably because it’s all on his tab.

He makes his way to the bathroom, stumbling a few times but ultimately surviving his trip to the urinal and then to the sink to wash his hands. He splashes water on his face and feels beyond annoyed that he looks a little like death. Though really, it’s not his fault. I mean, having your ex on your couch, and trying to solve a serial killer case isn’t exactly conducive to good sleep.

Stiles comes out a minute later, and his eyes scan the room for Cassie, who has her phone to her ear, and is standing behind some guy at the bar. She and the guy look over at the exact same time, and Stiles has the urge to turn into the wall and bash his head against it a couple of times, because of-fucking-course, it’s Derek. Cassie is grinning, pointing to the guy behind his back and mouthing, ‘This one,’ exaggeratedly.

Stiles waves her off to go finish her call since the jig is up and Derek has seen him. He saunters up just as the bartender is putting a plate of fried mushrooms, zucchini, and cheese down, along with another gin.

Stiles snatches up the drink and gulps down most of it before poking at the searing hot, breaded things. It says something that he doesn’t slap Derek’s hand away when he reaches for a mushroom.

“You hate those,” Stiles says.

“No. You hate them,” Derek counters, grimacing as he chews.

Stiles scrubs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “Why the hell are you here, Derek?”

Derek gives him a very flat look. “Because it’s late, there’s a serial killer on the loose who clearly has no qualms about using humans to get to the wolves, and you don’t carry around protection.”

True to his form, Stiles just grins and says, “I have two, non-expired condoms in my wallet right now, thank you very much.”

The tips of Derek’s ears pink, visible even in the crappy lighting. “You know what I mean.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and leans his elbow on the bar, his hand cradling his chin, and he picks at a cheese stick. It’s molten-lava hot, but the alcohol is making him not care. “You don’t know if I’m packing. You haven’t been around me in _years_ , Der.”

Derek leans in, and fuck, he smells so good and Stiles wants to climb him like a tree. Which only means nothing has changed. “Stiles, I was there when you quit law enforcement. I know how you feel about guns.”

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to be sucked into the memory of warm steel pressed against his forehead, the feeling of impending death, just a trigger pull away from his short life ending at seventeen. He licks his lips. “Just because I don’t agree with modern day gun culture, and the racist actions of police culture, doesn’t mean I’m _afraid_ to carry a gun, Derek.”

Derek lifts an eyebrow, leans in, snags a zucchini from the plate. “Do you have a gun?”

Stiles huffs and rolls his eyes away from Derek’s. “I have a pocket knife, and I’ll have you know that it’s worked fine for me for all these years. Obviously. As I am still human, and decidedly _not_ dead.”

Derek stares at him for a while, long enough that Stiles finally looks back at him, and sees the longing on his face, the heartbreak. Stiles is suddenly overcome with exhaustion, the long time fatigue of fighting for a guy who never, ever fights for you back.

“You know I want you,” Derek says after a long moment. “Stiles, you know I want you, and I know you want me. I can hear it in your heartbeat, I can smell it on you. Why won’t you just…”

“Because you left me, Derek,” Stiles spits. “You left me. I might have been the one to pack up and leave, but you were the one who made it so I didn’t have a choice.”

Derek bites his bottom lip, bows his head. “Stiles…”

“Why?” Stiles interrupts, angry all over again. He curls his hands into fists. “Why wait all that time, Derek? If you knew you couldn’t be with a human, why love me for years. Why date me, and marry me, and promise me forever, if you were just going to pull the rug out from under my feet because you _fucking knew_ I wouldn’t take the bite.”

Derek swallows, his eyes darting up to the ceiling like he’s trying to control tears or something, and Stiles feels a pang of regret, and longing in his chest. He wants to reach out and take, to touch. He knows Derek will allow it, will welcome him back, will put his arms around him and kiss him and it would be like they were never apart. He thinks that even now, Derek will never, ever bring up the bite again and they can go back to before those stupid, stupid words ever left his mouth.

But he won’t. Because he’s tired.

“I was afraid. Deep-down I knew it was wrong, and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. But I was too afraid to ignore that stupid voice in my head—the voice of my dead alpha telling me that I couldn’t have you without conditions. I was as broken as I ever was, I just didn’t realize how many parts of me needed to be fixed.”

Stiles bites the inside of his cheek, then shakes his head. “Why won’t you come to me now, then? If you can smell it, if you know I want it, why won’t you make that move?”

“Because I’m not the one who needs to decide if everything I did was worth forgiving,” Derek says, his voice low, shattered, but full of purpose. “And also, you’re drunk. I’m not…I won’t ever. Not like this.”

Stiles knows that to be true. They quit going out together because no matter how much pre-drunk Stiles had insisted it was okay, Derek wouldn’t put his hands on him for anything more than a cuddle after Stiles had been drinking. It was annoying, and endearing, and stupidly perfect.

“Don’t come home tonight, okay. Don’t…just. Give me time to think about this.” There’s begging in his tone, and he can’t help it because he can already feel his resolve cracking and he knows that all Derek has to say is ‘please’ one more time, and that’s it.

He knew deep down he would never be over this man.

Derek finally nods. “Okay,” he whispers. “I can do that.”

“Thank you.” Stiles stands up to get the bartender’s attention, tells her to release his tab to the woman he was with earlier. Then he turns back to Derek. “Call me in the morning. No. The afternoon. Call me in the afternoon and we can…get coffee. And talk.”

Derek nods again, but this time says nothing. He doesn’t really need to, it’s all there, open and raw in his red-rimmed gaze. There’s hope, and maybe a little belief that he won’t get Stiles back because he sure as hell doesn’t deserve to.

Except. Except maybe he does. Maybe he deserves to learn and grow, and maybe the two of them deserve to be happy together.

Stiles forces himself to leave before he does something stupid, like try to climb Derek like a tree. He doesn’t see Cassie anywhere, but that’s not unusual, and instead he makes for an alley up the street so he can put some distance between him and Derek before he calls a Lyft.

He’s too drunk for this, really, as he fumbles for his phone. It’s in his boot, because he forgot he shoved it down there when he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be tempted to drunk-dial his ex and say something idiotic.

Bending over, he starts to fuss with his laces.

And then something hits him over the back of the head. Hard. The world swims, and then it all goes black.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: character injury, mild torture, kidnapping

Stiles comes to, and for a second he panics because he can’t see anything at all. He feels at his face and realizes nothing is blocking his vision, so he’s either blind, or he’s in a pitch black room. His breathing is too quick, and he’s on the verge of hyperventilating when he hears a noise from the corner. It’s the smallest whimper, and then someone shushing it.

“Is anyone there?” Stiles asks, his throat dry and scratchy.

After a beat, “There’s two of us.” The voice is small, young, terrified, and he’s both relieved and furious.

“Can you see anything?” Stiles asks.

“Yes,” the child says, but before Stiles can panic, she says, “but I can see real good in the dark, but most people can’t.”

“You’re a wolf,” Stiles says, dizzy with relief.

“Yeah.” She says it at a small whisper, like she’s terrified of the secret. “You’re human?”

“Yes,” Stiles says, and the girl bursts into tears. There’s the shushing again, and Stiles pushes to his feet, walking forward until his hands come into contact with what feels like cement wall. The air is humid, cold, which means they’re probably underground. Not the best thing, but not the worst, either.

“Stop crying,” says a slightly older, feminine voice. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yuh huh!” the littler one bites back. “He always takes the humans and hurts ‘em real bad and I want…I want my momma!”

Stiles didn’t really need the confirmation that he’d been taken by the monster killing wolves, and it doesn’t really feel better now that he’s gotten it. “Hey,” he says, moving toward the sound of her crying. “I promise, I’m strong and brave, and I have some very strong, brave friends who are going to know I’m missing.”

Tomorrow, an internal, not-quite-helpful voice supplies. You told Derek not to bother you until tomorrow afternoon.

Shit. Fuck.

“Can either of you tell me what’s in this room?” he asks. He’s been in worse situations before, he just has to be able to think. Yes, he’s probably going to be tortured, and yeah, he’ll be lucky to get out of this alive. But he’s also got two _very_ young, full-shift wolves with him and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get them out of there alive, and take this thing down with him.

There’s a pause, then the older girl says, “I can kind of see you, and to your left there should be…” Suddenly two eyes burst into glowing gold and hold it for only a moment. “Three feet away is a bed. It’s kind of disgusting though. He never cleans in here. Ever.”

Stiles knows what that means, knows what that sort of sharp stench is, and he’s angrier than ever before. “Can you help me find it?” he asks.

He hears the girl shift, then clanking of metal and he realizes that they’re chained up. “I can’t,” she says.

Stiles nods, and as his head begins to clear almost completely, he remembers something. His phone. In his boot. He thinks this guy would have checked him, but he can still feel it pressed against his ankle. He crouches, digs it out, and sees that he has seventy percent charge and his signal is going in and out.

The kids both gasp when he fiddles with the screen, and he looks up to see them in the soft glow. One of them doesn’t look older than thirteen, the other can’t be more than six. They’re filthy, though relatively unharmed—though he’s not even sure what that means in this situation.

He knows making a call would probably be a death sentence, and so would the phone on him. The best he can do is turn on his location, hope it doesn’t drain his battery too fast, and pray that the SOS he sends to Derek goes through.

He does all this in seconds, then shoves the phone under the filthy mattress.

“Bring it back!” the little one cries.

Stiles feels his way over to the kids and sees that they’re on short chains, attached to manacles on their wrists and ankles. He wedges between them, takes the smallest on his lap and holds her tight.

“How long have you been here?” he asks.

The oldest answers quietly, “A week. She just got here yesterday.”

It’s strange that they’re still alive. From what he was able to tell from Alexander’s story, this guy kills quickly. At least, he did.

“Are there any others besides him?”

The little one just hunkers in close, so the older one answers. “Sometimes there are humans, but they die pretty quick. He kills the wolves that show up to try and take them. I don’t…I don’t know what he wants from me,” she says, and her breathing hitches, so he draws her close to him.

“Where is your pack from? What’s your name?” he asks.

She rubs her face on his shirt then says, “Molly. We’re from Toronto, but we were on vacation because my dad had a conference at the Art Museum. Her name is Mckenzie, and I think she said something about being from around here.”

“We moved,” Mckenzie says miserably, clutching Stiles tighter.

Stiles nods. “Okay. Well, I need you to do something for me, okay? I need you to just be quiet, even if he takes me, be brave and quiet. I have friends who will come and look for me, and they’re a lot stronger than most people think they are. That man, whoever he is—whatever he is—he’s probably going to take me and hurt me. I need you to do everything you can to stay safe and stay alive. My friends will get you home to your families.”

“Kay,” Mckenzie whispers, and Stiles isn’t sure she totally understands.

Very faintly, in the distance, he hears a buzzing noise, and he’s fairly sure he knows what that mean. His eyes close and he prays to any god listening, that might not hate him for all the terrible shit he’s done in his life, that Derek is on his way.

That Derek will know how to find him, and how to kill this monster.

Stiles hears footsteps, and the clanking of metal. His heart begins to race. The door flies open and he’s blinded by bright light. The girls cry out as he’s ripped from their arms, but he waves at them, a silent reminder of their promise.

“I’ll be okay,” he says. He’s blindfolded and walked forward, and he hears a dark, angry laugh in his ear.

“No, you won’t be. And neither will they.”

_ _ _ 

He’s not sure how long he’s tortured for. The guy doesn’t even want information—doesn’t ask him anything, just makes him scream. He’s fairly sure he knows why—it’ll draw Derek to him. What he doesn’t know, at least he’s pretty sure the guy doesn’t know, is that Derek already knows. That Derek has probably gotten help, has back up. Can take this guy down, because they’ve defeated humans gone dark side before, and they can do it again.

Unfortunately he’s bleeding from a lot of places, and his voice is no longer working, and he’s drifting in and out of consciousness.

He just hears mouth breathing, and quiet grunts, and feels the vague echo of pain as something digs into his flesh.

He’s unconscious when it ends, and comes to when something cool and effervescent hits the inside of his nose which he recognizes as saline and pain meds from an IV drip. Suddenly he’s aware of the anesthetic smell of a hospital room, and he cracks one eye open against the faint light above his bed.

Both eyes work, it seems, which he counts as a win. He can wiggle all ten fingers and toes—and all ten seem to be there. Everything hurts in that vague way—but that’s not strange to him. After the Nogitsune, he felt like he’d been run over by at least six dozen mag trucks, so really, this is a walk in the park.

He groans and turns his head to the side, and for a second he thinks the body in the chair next to him is Derek. Then he sees the scarring. “Alexander.” His voice comes off not-quite-there, like he’s spent six hours screaming at a concert. Feels like he’s gotten intimate with the inside of a mosh-pit too, so there’s that.

Alexander leans forward, his face drawn, but relieved. “You survived.”

“I think so. If this is an afterlife, it’s a pretty shitty one.”

Alexander laughs. “Smart. That thing you did with the text. Your friend Cassie was able to track your GPS signal. Derek had a few pack allies in town.”

Stiles swallows against the aching dryness of his throat and wants water, but also wants another shot of morphine and a good week’s worth of sleep. “He dead?”

Alexander nods. “I did it.” There’s satisfaction in his voice that Stiles hopes he never feels, because it’s the satisfaction of revenge after losing someone you helped bring into this world. “He talked. A little. A full-shift wolf bit his fiancée, and she died. He was diagnosed with a psychosis, was going through intensive therapy because he’d been there, he’d seen everything. He ran off, and some fuckwit fake psychic in Arizona made up a story about killing all werewolves, and how it would negate the magic and bring her back. I don’t know where he learned how to track them, or where he got the wolfsbane. He swallowed a pill that would have killed him, but I didn’t want him to have the honor of taking his own life.”

Stiles wants to reach out and comfort the man, but he doesn’t have anything to give. “Your daughter…”

“She’s alive,” Alexander says. “She met an alpha who got her out of the city once rumors started to spread about the murders. Derek says he’s working on the identity of the man in the back of the killer’s truck, and he’s going to get those girls back to their families.”

Stiles nods, and then he’s hit with a wave of pain so intense, all he sees is blinding white. Alexander stands up, reaches over him, clicks a button on his IV. For a moment, it burns, then there’s a sweet rush of relief.

“This was my god-send when I was recovering. You took it better than I did.”

Stiles licks his lips, then shakes his head. “Nah. Is your daughter coming back?”

Alexander allows himself a small smile. “Yeah. She’s on her way now.” After a pause, he says, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s like my aunt Talia. I think he held on to some bad ideas for a long time, because no one was around to teach him differently. He loves you about as much as I love my girls, and that’s an unfathomable amount, Stiles. So if you have it in you…”

Stiles laughs as he starts to drift. “He’s a fucking idiot if he thinks I ever stopped.”

The light fades and the pain with it, and when he wakes again hours later, Alexander is long gone.

_ _ _ 

No sign of Derek as Stiles is released. Cassie’s there to load him up in her truck and get him home with a bag of pain meds, and fresh dressing for the veritable galaxy of stitches across his body. They’ll scar, but they’ll be faded, thin lines once he’s healed. He’s got a pretty ugly one across his jawline, but he thinks it kind of makes him look badass.

The only thing he really regrets is not getting to see those girls off, but it’s not really his place. He held on for as long as he could, and Derek showed up with some cavalry and they were rescued. It was the best he could hope for in the world’s most shitty situation. There are still so many full-shift wolves dead, but at least Alexander didn’t lose both his daughters, and at least that man can’t hurt anyone ever again.

Cassie clearly knows that more than human stuff went down, but it’s a testament to her badassery that she doesn’t ask questions. She just kissed him on the forehead and said she was going to go chill with Steve two doors down, and to text if he needed anything.

Stiles didn’t really want company—or to be frank, hers wasn’t the company he wanted. So he let his head fall back onto the fluffy pillows she’d dragged from his room, and he nestled down on the couch in the blanket Derek had been using.

He’s damn near asleep when the door opens, and though he should have been alarmed, he just knows it was him. Derek’s boots are heavy on the bare floors, and he doesn’t say anything as he takes Stiles’ usual chair, taking them off, then his jacket, then his jeans.

He walks to the couch and pulls the blanket aside, moving Stiles with hands that should not be able to be so damn gentle. There’s the light-headed feeling of pain drain as Derek arranges himself behind Stiles’ prone body, and it’s saying something how he just knows, how he doesn’t ask for permission this time. Stiles would be angry if this wasn’t the exact thing he needed, both for the pain, and for whatever shards of their relationship are left to piece together.

He feels Derek nose at the back of his neck, scenting him, breathing him in. An arm comes around him, avoiding the bigger gashes. A bare palm lays flat against his stomach, and Derek’s entire body is tense, like he’s afraid if he moves wrong, Stiles will disappear.

“Did the girls get back to their families okay?”

Derek hums, nodding against the back of Stiles’ head. “They’re sending money.” Stiles tries to protest, but Derek squeezes him tight. “It’s a pack thing, okay? You rescued two born wolves, full-shift wolves.”

“I didn’t do any rescuing,” Stiles points out. “I drunkenly stumbled into an alley, was kidnapped and tortured, and you came in all claws and fangs blazing and saved the day.”

Derek’s breath hitches, and he just lays there, a faint tremor to his body. It’s a while before he can speak again. “The girls said you comforted them and told them you were going to keep his attention so there was time for them to get rescued. And you did. You held on in spite of everything. They’re safe, and so are you. And I’m here.” Another long pause, then he says simply, “I love you.”

Stiles tries to laugh, or scoff, but instead it comes out a hoarse, dry sob and he feels his eyes get really, really hot and wet. “Fuck,” he gasps. Then he’s crying, and he knows it’s mostly the bleed-off from the whole torture thing. And he knows it’s loneliness because while he’s grateful to be with someone he loves, who loves him back, he misses his dad and his family, and Scott. The place feels empty and too quiet, and nothing like he imagined his life would be like once all the shit was over.

“I’m sorry,” Derek says. “You’re right about everything, and I’m sorry. If I have to work my entire life to earn your trust, to prove to you that you are everything to me exactly the way you are, I will. I don’t care if you never forgive me.”

Stiles shakes his head. “I should have tried harder too. I should have sat your stubborn ass down and made you understand that what you wanted, what you were asking from me, was unrealistic. Instead I just let you self-sabotage and then I let you give it all up without even trying.”

“That wasn’t your job,” Derek says.

In spite of the pain, and the feeling of his stitches tugging, Stiles turns in Derek’s arms and takes him by both cheeks. His palms are raw and cut up, but they feel so fucking good against Derek’s soft beard. “It wasn’t my job, you’re right. You gave me two choices and I took one of them. I’m not saying I could have gotten through to you, but I also could have tried harder. I just…wanted you to work harder, too. And I didn’t think you would have.”

“I’m not sure how things would have been different if you’d stayed,” Derek admits. He bows his head and lets it come to rest against Stiles’. “Everyone was really mad at me for so long, but they didn’t fight to keep you either, so I thought—for a little while, I thought maybe I’d done the right thing. But not more than a month passed when I realized what a colossal fuck up I’d made of the whole thing. But Scott told me if you wanted to come back, you’d come back. So…I waited.”

Stiles sighs. “Scott is the world’s biggest dipshit. I love him, but he is. If you’d have come after me, I would have let you.”

“So for that, I’m sorry. And you don’t have to believe me now, but hopefully you will one day.”

“I think that’s quite enough soul-baring for my morphine-addled brain,” Stiles says after a minute. He sinks into the warmth that is Derek, and his eyes close. “I need sleep.”

“So sleep,” Derek says. He buries his fingers in Stiles’ hair, and as he drags blunt nails along his scalp, he pulls more pain away. Stiles starts to drift, and he’s not sure if it’s a dream or not when he hears Derek’s voice murmur, “I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue**

Tipping his head back, Stiles groans at the sensation of Derek at his back, marking along his shoulder, and the steaming hot water pouring out of the showerhead. Derek’s hands, slick with soap, slide up an down his sides, and Stiles arches back, his ass pressing against the throbbing harness hanging heaving between Derek’s legs.

“This…” Stiles gasps for breath, “this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said I needed to wash the move off me.”

Derek doesn’t do more than hum, his mouth occupied with the open expanse of Stiles’ skin which is all out there, free for him to help himself. Part of Stiles wants to protest. They just spent four hours moving all his shit from his apartment in Denver to the little Muir Beach cottage Derek has been working on for the last three months. Turning in the shower, Stiles can see out their bedroom window at the rolling green, which juts off with a cliff overlooking the rocky beach below. It’s everything he’d ever wanted and had been too afraid to consider asking for.

A home for the pair of them—close enough to the pack if they’re needed, but in their own little world so whatever fractures remain can heal without the world breaking in every ten minutes.

It’s been exactly one year and six months since that night on the sofa. One year and six months of them learning how to be together again, how to live as they are instead of what they’re afraid of. Stiles had no illusions about it being easy, but he was taken by surprise at how uncomplicated it was once Derek realized that he wanted Stiles as is, and that no angry, vengeful ghost of his past was going to snatch him away simply because Stiles wanted to be himself.

Derek’s hands linger on Stiles’ scarring. That was inevitable, really, the care he would show them, how he would never forget. The kidnapping was just one in a long list of bullshit Stiles knew he’d forever have to live with—not just from his past, but the future too. His soulmate—if he really believed in that sort of thing—was a werewolf. Stiles knew what went bump in the night, and the things that went bump knew about him too.

They’d never be safe. But they could be this. Content, happy, lost in the feel of each other.

Stiles’ eyes roll back into his head as Derek pushes a finger inside of him. He’s still slightly lubed up from their frantic, we just moved into our house, fuck, and he’s a little sore, but it’s the good kind of ache that makes him want more, more more. He fucks himself against Derek’s hand, hoarding the sound of every groan, every shiver which just tells Stiles he still knows how to make this man fall to pieces.

Derek detaches himself from Stiles only long enough to step outside of the shower to grab the lube. Then he’s got Stiles pressed back against the shower wall, the tiles cold against his back, but Derek so hot against his front. He slicks himself up and pushes in quick so the rushing water doesn’t wash any of it away, and then starts punching forward with hard thrusts of his hips.

Stiles brings one leg up, wrapping around Derek’s hips, Derek holding him tight, and hitting him right there, exactly where he needs it.

“Ohhh god, god fuck me. God, Derek, fuck me, please.”

“I am, I am fucking you.” Derek says, his breath coming in harsh pants. Stiles shifts, then starts thrusting down against Derek, taking him deeper, harder, and Derek’s entire body tenses. “God, Stiles. Yes. God, look at you.”

Stiles loses time after that, the pleasure rippling up and down his spine as his hard dick gives a weak twitch and manages to spill whatever’s left. It’s not much, just a few drops, and he feels Derek spill inside of him too, a hot gush and firm twitch that lights him up all over.

They take a moment, Derek softening slowly inside of him before he slips out. Stiles’ legs feel like jelly, and they do a cursory rinse before they step out. Stiles ignores his town and just wraps up in his thick robe, stumbling to the bed and falling face-first in the soft, down duvet.

“Okay, libido is saying more, but my ass is saying it needs at least a few hours of recovery before I can do that again.”

Derek eases himself down next to Stiles, mostly dry and dressed only in sweat pants. His hand reaches out, separating the wet clumps of Stiles’ hair, dragging along the biggest scar Stiles has which shines a faint pink on his jawline.

“How about I order out.”

Stiles snuffles into the pillow. “Probably a good idea. I don’t think I could cook, even if my life depended on it.”

Derek leans in and presses a soft kiss to the shell of Stiles’ ear. “I think you probably could, if you have to.”

“Yeah well, let’s not have any life-dependent mundane things happen for at least six months, okay? Like…new house rule.”

Derek chuckles, nosing at Stiles’ cheek until his head turns and he can kiss him properly. “Deal,” he says against Stiles’ lips. “What sounds good?”

“You,” Stiles says, and grins. “But also curry.”

“I’ll go order,” Derek says, and disappears out into the main room.

When he’s gone, Stiles pushes himself up, walking to the dresser to grab a pair of pants and a t-shirt. When he’s dressed, his hand lingers over the sock drawer, freshly unpacked and once-again, hiding a small box that has two rings in it.

Stiles debated for a long time about their rings. Derek still had them, had offered Stiles’ back to him, but Stiles had insisted that _if_ they were going to go there again, it had to be a fresh start. He didn’t want anything big or fancy this time—his dad wasn’t there to see it, and half the pack was scattered across the country growing up and having families and doing adult things.

But all the same, it had to be new.

Derek took it as a sort of rejection, Stiles knew. That the spectacular failure of the first time was too much to risk on what they had now which still felt so fragile. But it wasn’t. Stiles had commissioned two rings from a little shop on etsy, engraved with triskelions on the inside. He’d had them for nearly six months now, and their first night in their new house seemed a good a time as any to start this new journey.

He waits until Derek comes back, holding the box between his hands as he sits cross-legged on the bed. Derek flops over next to him, nudging up against him until his head is pillowed on Stiles’ thigh, eyes closed. “Forty-five minutes. Because we live fucking far from everything.”

Stiles huffs a laugh and pushes his fingers into Derek’s hair gently. “So uh. I have a thing I wanted to talk about. To suggest. If you want to say no…”

“Stiles, I’m not fucking role playing assassins meant to kill each other but fall in love instead,” Derek grumbles.

Stiles flushes. “Okay first of all, rude. Because that would be amazing _and_ sexy. You fucking loved the Stucky fic I sent you last week. And second, this is something serious. And I need you to know that it…it doesn’t change anything, okay? No matter what.”

Derek sits up at that, his face vaguely alarmed, and Stiles knows it’s because Derek thinks Stiles might walk back out at any minute. He needs to change that. He needs Derek to understand that they both fucked up, and that Derek isn’t the only one rebuilding trust here. That Derek isn’t the only one in this, no matter what.

He holds the box out on his palm “I wanted to surprise you. I…we don’t have to make it official, because frankly I’m in this whether or not we have some piece of paper saying it’s legal. Not being married won’t ever make it easier for me to walk out. Because I’m not going to walk out. I love you, and…and I just need you to know that as hard as you’ve been working to show that things have changed, well I’m going to be working that hard for the rest of my life to show you that we’re good. We’re solid. This is us.”

Derek’s hand is shaking as he plucks the box from Stiles’ palm and opens it. There’s an expression of muted awe on his face as he touches the bands, and Stiles almost laughs because he thought this moment might not hold as much weight since they’ve been here before.

But he was wrong. He’s scared and he’s nervous and he’s excited, and it’s exactly the same as it was the first time.

He thinks maybe he could propose to Derek every day of their lives and it would still be as thrilling as the first.

Eventually Derek looks up. He closes the box and sets it aside, then cups Stiles’ face between both hands and kisses him soft, slow, sweet. “I’m in this too,” he says when he breaks away. “For good. So yeah, Stiles, I’ll marry you. As many times as it takes until we get it right.”

Stiles laughs gently against his mouth, then pins him back on the bed. “Vegas wedding? Elvis? Drunken shenanigans and wasting our entire savings on the craps table?”

“Yes to two of those things. Maybe three,” Derek concedes, then drags Stiles into the curl of his arms and holds tight. “I meant what I said. As many times as it takes.”

Stiles presses his face into Derek’s neck and whispers softly, “Well…I think we got it right this time.”


End file.
